


city streetlights

by Carcharias



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Busking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 17:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carcharias/pseuds/Carcharias
Summary: Kyungsoo sits up straighter on the low brick wall, coughs lightly into the mic, and amidst the hustle and bustle of the late night Hongdae crowd, sings.





	city streetlights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneforyourfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneforyourfire/gifts).



> the long-awaited Hongdae buskers au, or at least a part of it. It only took three-ish years. I hope you like it, and happy birthday. <3

It’s cold, and the cold makes Kyungsoo’s fingers go numb, frozen in place around the beat up mic he bought four years ago with the money he’d saved from his part-time at the 7-11. The cold makes his voice numb, too, warmed only by the McCafe Chanyeol had bought them both, meant for sharing but Kyungsoo ended up drinking most of it. He can feel the scratch from the coffee on his voice, and it’s not ideal, but late fall in Seoul is never ideal. Kyungsoo flexes his fingers, feels them creak as he adjusts his grip to pull the sleeves of his sweater over them. He can’t imagine how Chanyeol’s playing the guitar at all.

But he is, and the amp squeaks a bit before settling, and soft, familiar notes drift out from Chanyeol’s guitar. Kyungsoo sits up straighter on the low brick wall, coughs lightly into the mic, and amidst the hustle and bustle of the late night Hongdae crowd, sings.

 

“Great job tonight.” Kyungsoo looks up from where he’s carefully wrapping the mic cord around his arm. It was a slower night than usual, the early cold rushing clubgoers quickly between venues, only the ones too drunk to feel the cold lingering, and too drunk to tip well. One of the other buskers, ones who set up on the other side of the park, is standing by their stand of promo postcards, absently fingering the top one. He’s part of a trio of rappers who always attract a decent crowd, beatboxing and remixing Top40 and K-Pop hits. They’ve shared the park on and off for six months now, longer than usual, and they always turn their amp away from Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, which is more than most will do.

“Thanks.” Kyungsoo tucks the cord into the amp and stands up, absently blowing on his hands to warm them.

“I liked that acoustic rework of Love Me Love Me,” the rapper says, eyes bright. He’s the one with the honey voice, his raps low and slower than the other two, and Kyungsoo secretly thinks it would be more suited to singing. “You sounded really smooth.”

Kyungsoo ducks his head. “It was cold out, my voice was a bit tight.” 

“Well I couldn’t tell.”

Kyungsoo is saved from responding by Chanyeol’s return from the GS27. He gently knocks the bag against Kyungsoo’s leg, soju bottles clinking. “Got the last original.” Kyungsoo takes the bottle eagerly and Chanyeol nods at the rapper. “Hey.”

“Hey.” The guy smiles, and finally pockets the card he’s playing with. “See you next week,” he says to Kyungsoo, and much to Kyungsoo’s surprise, turns away with a wink.

Chanyeol packs up the cards and flops down onto the bench next to Kyungsoo with a huff, cracking open his own bottle, peach flavor.

“That guy was flirting with you,” Chanyeol says, gesturing to the now empty park, only a few wasted stragglers left stumbling home in the waning night. His eyes glint in the streetlights, mouth pink and chapped.

“Hm,” is all Kyungsoo says, playing with the lip of his bottle. 

“You’re blushing.”

“It’s cold.” Chanyeol snorts, takes a large swig and the topic drops.

They sit there for a while, but shorter than usual, the soju only half gone. A garbage lady shuffles by and Chanyeol stands, stamping his feet.

“Let’s go home.”

 

Home is a tiny apartment they’ve shared for four years, belongings interwoven to the point where Kyungsoo no longer knows what’s his and what’s Chanyeol’s. (Except for the oversized clothes, and the guitar, and the keyboard jammed in the corner, and the chipped Rilakkuma mug. But Kyungsoo bought that mug anyway). 

Kyungsoo drops the equipment by the door and hastily shuffles over to the space heater to turn it on. It’s a tiny, dingy thing Chanyeol bought off a grandma for 12k won in one of the underground markets but it’s plugged along just fine, and gives off heat ridiculously disproportionate to its size. Kyungsoo sighs in relief as his fingers tingle with renewed feeling. There’s a cold tap on the side of his head and he turns to take his half empty bottle of soju dangling from Chanyeol’s hand. Chanyeol burrows under a blanket on the small, sagging couch, and after another minute basking in front of the heater, Kyungsoo joins him.

The moment Kyungsoo sits Chanyeol flings the blanket wide and envelops Kyungsoo in fleecy softness and warmth, nearly spilling their drinks in the process. He doesn’t stop there, either, wrapping more blanket up around Kyungsoo’s neck despite his protests, creating an oversized muffler that nearly engulfs Kyungsoo’s entire head. Kyungsoo can barely move his head and the only reason he doesn’t fling it off at Chanyeol’s face is that it is actually quite warm. He awkwardly tries to drink from his bottle, and Chanyeol laughs, eyes crinkled and grin crooked. 

Neither of them turned the lights on but Kyungsoo can see Chanyeol, lit by the purple and blue glow of the neon signs outside, and like usual, through the familiar warmths of the heater and soju and Chanyeol’s leg against his own, Kyungsoo watches Chanyeol shine.

 

 _You’re dazzling_  
_Like a star in the dark night_  
_I can’t see anything else_  
_You’re mine_  
_Tell me you feel the same_

 

 __When Kyungsoo wants to escape, wants to truly escape the stresses and problems of the world, he turns to music. Loses himself in the melodies other people write, tries to take them and make them his, give them new life and new meaning in his voice. It works, for almost every problem.

But music is Chanyeol, has been Chanyeol for long enough now that Kyungsoo can’t remember what it felt like before, and so this time, for _this_ problem, music is no escape. So Kyungsoo takes his feelings and he wraps them in plastic, shoves them inside his chest, hoping they don’t leak out when he breathes into the mic and opens his heart a little to the streets.

Sometimes, the feelings leak anyway and Kyungsoo doesn’t even try to stop them, slices open the plastic he’s wrapped them in, lets them coat his voice and the words of K.Will, tangle with the notes Chanyeol plays. When they play songs that Chanyeol writes, songs about love and light and longing, Kyungsoo takes the words and makes them his, flings them back at Chanyeol, at the world, hoping that maybe he’ll recognize longing in his own words, if not the words of another singer. 

On those nights, they make almost a third more in tips than usual, and they celebrate with chicken and beer.

Kyungsoo would slice his heart open more often, if he thought it wouldn’t eventually kill him. Instead, he’ll keep it bottled forever, if he has to.

 

 _It needs to be you, you are my love_  
_I can’t go on without you, I need you_

 

The cold has settled in with a vengeance, the full brunt of the Seoul winter bearing down on the city. No snow, but it’s only a matter of time. Soon enough, it’ll be too cold to busk every other night; the dancers manage fine, and some of the more desperate singers brave the cold, but Kyungsoo and Chanyeol are not two of them. They’ll busk around Christmas and the New Year’s holidays to score dating and tourist tips, but no more. 

Winter seems to hold them in a sort of stasis, semi-frozen in time as well as in their fingertips. They work more shifts at the 7-11 and at the noraebang, seeing less of each other, moving in circles that only barely overlap at home in the wee hours of the morning and occasionally at dinner. The honey-voiced rapper calls Kyungsoo and they go out once, chat and flirt over beer, kiss in the shadows behind a cosmetics store. It’s nice, but Kyungsoo goes home alone and doesn’t save his number. Chanyeol sulks, denied Kyungsoo’s voice for the evening, but brightens when Kyungsoo brings back boxes of noodles, still steaming, the next evening after his shift. Kyungsoo wonders how far he’s gone if Chanyeol’s face covered in black bean sauce makes his chest feel warmer than sweet words and floppy hair and soft, beer-flavored kisses.

 

After his third shift at the 7-11 Kyungsoo rushes home, strips and frantically buries himself in the sheets of his bed. He lies there for who knows how long, trying to warm up under the blankets. He dozes, in and out, until finally he warms enough to relax. The door opens and a slight breeze of cold air wafts over the exposed area of Kyungsoo’s neck; he shivers and burrows further under the blankets, tries to sink into sleep. 

Chanyeol plods into the room, dropping his bag and his coat in the same place. Some more rustling, and the mattress shifts as he climbs in behind Kyungsoo. He nuzzles his way under the covers and Kyungsoo feels the sharp jolt of a cold nose at his neck. Kyungsoo almost yelps, flinches away but Chanyeol grabs at him, pulls him closer, making incoherent protesting noises.

“Sorry…” he mumbles into Kyungsoo’s shirt, hands cold on his waist through the fabric, but warming by the second. “Stay. Warm…comfy.” 

“Asshole,” Kyungsoo breathes, without bite. “Your feet are cold too.”

Chanyeol winds his legs through Kyungsoo’s in retaliation, and Kyungsoo tries to breathe, wonders if he will ever be able to sleep. But Chanyeol is warm, solid, huge, and the sound of his sleepy breathing at the back of Kyungsoo’s neck is soothing, and in almost no time at all slips into dreams.

Sometimes winter is okay.

 

 _Once more warmly_  
_Hold me, as if everything will melt_  
_With your touch_

 

Eventually, winter reluctantly loosens its grip on Seoul and the first hints of spring flow off the Han, winding through budding cherry blossoms and rustling the tents of the street vendors. The sun shines with real strength for the first time in months, pale light burning yellow and coaxing scarves from necks and coats from shoulders. 

Spring also usually means new faces in the streets of Hongdae, the cohort of musicians and dancers and entertainers shuffling with the start of new school years, new jobs, new lives. 

“The rappers are gone,” Chanyeol pronounces cheerily as he sets up on Friday evening. Kyungsoo looks up and sure enough, the trio are gone, replaced by a small group of guys and girls, dancers by the look of it. 

“Wonder if they got signed,” Kyungsoo says. Changing lineups in Hongdae is more often a sign of misfortune, dying dreams or new dreams altogether, but sometimes it’s a sign of success. It’s been four years and Kyungsoo still finds himself thinking maybe, maybe today. “They were nice.”

“Meh, I dunno. They were pretty inconsistent,” Chanyeol shrugs and pointedly tunes his guitar. 

“At least they were polite,” Kyungsoo says, wincing as the dance troupe turns on their boombox, the latest boy group blasting loudly across the park towards them. Chanyeol frowns, and reaches over to turn the amp up a bit louder. 

Twenty minutes later and barely able to hear themselves, Kyungsoo drops his mic in a huff and stalks towards the troupe, ignoring Chanyeol calling him back.

Kyungsoo fights around the small crowd and watches as they finish up a song. They’re actually quite good but he’s not in a charitable mood. “Hey,” he barks, catching a girl as they switch out, work the crowd for tips. She startles and whirls around, pink tipped ponytail nearly smacking him in the face. “What?” She looks ready to clock him but Kyungsoo plows on, stonyfaced.

“Mind turning it down or facing the other way?” he asks, jabbing a thumb back at their setup. “We can barely hear ourselves think.” 

She peers over his shoulder and to her credit, actually looks a little contrite. “Oh sorry, yeah we’ll turn it down,” she says. “Didn’t even see you guys over there.” Kyungsoo has a hard time believing that, it’s a small park, but he smiles gratefully anyway and heads back to Chanyeol. 

They do turn it down, even shifting the music around to point kind of away from their direction, and the rest of the evening goes fine if it’s still a little tense. They both catch the dancers looking their way occasionally, whispering, and it makes Chanyeol’s shoulders hunch, fingers dance with nerves, Kyungsoo grip the mic tighter, tries to weave soothing notes into his voice, fight to bring Chanyeol down. He clings to the knowledge that dance troupes almost never go past midnight.

As expected, around eleven p.m. the troupe wraps it up and they both start to breathe easier. They take a break between sets and Kyungsoo goes to buy a couple waters. He’s barely gone a couple minutes but as he walks back up the street, he sees two of the girls standing in front of Chanyeol still sitting on the bench. It’s pink ponytail and another girl in cropped sweatshirt, and Kyungsoo frowns, digs his nails into his palm, and walks a bit faster, bracing for a fight. It’s been a while since he had to get in another entertainer’s face, but he will. Chanyeol certainly won’t.

But just as he stalks up to the bench the girls turn and leave with cheery waves.

“What was that about?” Kyungsoo asks, setting the water on the bench. Chanyeol is staring down at his hands, looking a little shellshocked.

“They uh. She gave me her number,” he says, and Kyungsoo finally notices the postcard in his hands, phone number scrawled across it in silver sharpie. He feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.

“Oh.” He coughs. “That’s. Nice.”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo tries to ignore the way Chanyeol’s face breaks into a small smile as they start into their next set. (He can’t, because nothing else draws his eyes under the streetlights like Chanyeol).

 

The yellow dust is particularly bad the next weekend and Kyungsoo daringly, stupidly, goes maskless for most of it, singing and singing past the grit in his throat. He coughs, hacks up phlegm all of Monday, scaring customers, eyes watery behind his mask. By the time he staggers home Kyungsoo can barely talk, eyes red and throat on fire from coughing. Chanyeol is there to catch him when he staggers through the doorway, lowering him to the couch and calling work to take a day off despite Kyungsoo’s raspy protests.

“You have a date,” he groans, but Chanyeol just shrugs him off. Kyungsoo’s chest relaxes a bit in relief, before he spasms with coughs once again. 

Chanyeol dotes and hovers and fusses as Kyungsoo’s sore throat develops into fever, coughs until there’s nothing left in his lungs to cough, lying exhausted and sore on the couch. Chanyeol doesn’t leave except to run to the store for tea and cough drops and cold packs, calling his mother to ask for good sick recipes. His phone lights up a few times and every time he ignores it, Kyungsoo feels his chest warm a bit more, but then maybe that’s the fever.

Chanyeol’s hand is on his forehead, warm against the cold pack on his skin. The fever has broken him open, left him vulnerable, and he feels delirious with the heady rush of heat and emotions. He reaches up to poke the furrow between Chanyeol’s eyebrows. 

“Don’t be so serious,” he mumbles, and Chanyeol chuckles. His brows smooth and Kyungsoo smiles wide. “There we go, so handsome now.” He pokes where Chanyeol’s dimple should be, fingers lingering. Chanyeol’s eyes are wide and shiny, dark and glittering and full of what his fever wants to call love, the same love as Kyungsoo feels, but he knows better, knows that his words fall on deaf ears, deaf giant ears, and will continue to do so, and suddenly the weight of how long it’s been, how long he’ll have to carry this in his heart locked up hits him and all the strength leaves his limbs. His chest feels like it’s about to collapse and he coughs weakly. He drops his hand, but not before tweaking Chanyeol’s ear, tries to cover the sinkhole in his chest.

“I’m gonna die,” Kyungsoo says and it comes out as a whine. Chanyeol laughs, and runs his hand through Kyungsoo’s short, sweaty hair, and Kyungsoo wants to cry. He smiles instead, and drinks the tea Chanyeol hands him.

 

 _My heart hurts when I see you, It’s alright, it’s love_

 

“It’s finished!” Chanyeol crows and flops onto the couch, limbs splayed and flopping over Kyungsoo’s lap. It takes Kyungsoo a minute to realize what Chanyeol’s talking about, distracted by sudden legs. 

“Oh! The song!” Chanyeol’s been working on a song for weeks, hunched in the corner with his headphones and keyboard, silently pressing away at keys and scribbling in his coffee-stained notebook. Kyungsoo’s heard bits of it, tested out vocals and harmonies, and already knows it’s one of Chanyeol’s best.

Chanyeol bounces excitedly. “I wanna play it tonight.”

“Hmmm, I dunno if I can manage to do it justice tonight,” Kyungsoo says, coughing a little. He sees a flash of concern across Chanyeol’s face before he catches the grin on Kyungsoo’s face, then he groans and tackles Kyungsoo into the couch. They fall off, wrestling, and their laughter fills the apartment. 

 

The pit in Kyungsoo’s chest grows after he finally gets better, but instead of crippling him, he finds an odd strength in it. Because he’s decided it’s too much to hide, isn’t even going to bother to wrap it in plastic, because if it’s going to consume him again like it feels it will, then what’s the point? He’ll open it up, let the feelings spill out, and if Chanyeol doesn’t see or hear, then maybe he can finally excise it from his chest. And move on.

So that night, after they play a few of their normal repertoire, Kyungsoo opens his chest and lets his love fill the words that Chanyeol wrote, give them depth and color and emotion. He sings into the busy streets, echoes into the park, over the thump of the dancers’ stereo, into the watching faces of the crowd listening, tells them look, listen, look how he shines like a star in the sky, I love him, I love him, I love him. 

It’s freeing and wonderful, and Kyungsoo loses himself for a moment, like he can for every other problem. For a few fantastic moments he floats off the dirty pavement towards the streetlights. Towards the end of the song he looks at Chanyeol and the look on his face pulls him down to earth with a sudden, shattering jolt. 

He heard.  
He heard me.  
He _knows._

Kyungsoo finishes the song, just barely, and hardly notices the applause or the sound of coins and bills landing in their collection box. He can’t look at Chanyeol, doesn’t want to see how his eyes went wide, mouth slack with realization. They awkwardly lurch into another song, a regular pop song, and the crowd changes.

It’s been so long, so long without Chanyeol noticing, Kyungsoo didn’t even consider the possibility of him actually _seeing_ , realizing, hearing Kyungsoo. And only now, too late, does he realize how foolish he was, to rely on Chanyeol’s ignorance in the face of the full force of Kyungsoo’s love. 

Chanyeol doesn’t go get soju and they pack up in silence, and Kyungsoo tries not to think about what he’s done. They walk home, weaving between drunks and past taxis, and Kyungsoo tries not to think about how he’s going to lose everything. They open the door to their apartment and Kyungsoo goes to boil water, just to have something to do, and tries not to panic. 

“Hey.” Chanyeol’s voice is soft but it cuts through the silence like a knife. Kyungsoo turns and tries not to look at him sitting on the couch, but fails. “Come here.”

Kyungsoo momentarily considers the possibility of fleeing, running down the street and into the mountains to live alone in a temple somewhere. But his legs disobey and guide him to the couch, to sit stiffly beside Chanyeol as far as possible on the tiny, sagging cushions. He can feel Chanyeol staring at him, searching, probably looking for denial and finding none.

“Do you…” Chanyeol starts, but shakes his head and cuts himself off. “Can you sing it again?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t have to ask what, and laughs a little in resignation. But he opens his mouth and starts on the chorus, and like he did tonight he pours his feelings into the notes, pours his heart to fill the tiny apartment. This time, however, he doesn’t look at Chanyeol, squeezes his eyes shut.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Chanyeol says when he finishes, and Kyungsoo snaps his head up at how small his voice sounds. Chanyeol’s hunched over, wringing his hands, face pleading and eyes shiny. “Why didn’t you say anything? Were y--were you _playing_ with me, did you know how I felt, was it a joke?” Kyungsoo frantically searches his face, barely believing what he’s hearing. Chanyeol’s face shifts to panic. “Oh god, please tell me it’s not a joke, Kyungsoo.” 

Kyungsoo shakes his head wordlessly, already reaching out for him, grasping for any part, and Chanyeol makes a wet sound when his hand cups his jaw, winds into the hood of his sweatshirt, pulls. Chanyeol’s lips are soft and warm on his and Kyungsoo takes, greedy, desperate for more. He presses harder, just shy of too rough, and Chanyeol makes a noise that almost sounds like a sob. Or maybe that was Kyungsoo. Chanyeol’s hands come up to wind around Kyungsoo’s waist and up to cling to the back of his shirt, pulling them closer. Kyungsoo threads his hands in Chanyeol’s hair, holding him in place as he licks at Chanyeol’s lips, into his mouth as he immediately opens for Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo feels the kiss in his bones and down his spine, feels the black hole in his chest ballooning outward into a supernova, pours the energy and feeling into the slide of his lips against Chanyeol’s, feels it returned back tenfold in the grip of his shirt, the bite at his lips, the small desperate noises against his mouth. He breaks away, moves to kiss Chanyeol’s cheeks, damp with tears.

“You big crybaby,” he jokes, voice cracking a bit and Chanyeol laughs, thick and wet. 

“Says you,” Chanyeol says, reaching up to wipe at Kyungsoo’s face and suddenly he realizes he’s tearing up a bit too. He laughs, smiles wide, and leans back in for more, softer. He’ll whisper the words he’s kept in his chest against Chanyeol’s lips, in his own words this time. 

 

 _Hello angel, you’re like a painting_  
_You’re all I see when I look to the skies_  
_City street lights, even if the lights go out_  
_And the moon disappears, it’s bright because_  
_I have a star that fell from the skies_  
_And it’s you_

**Author's Note:**

> Song lyrics referenced, in order:
> 
>  
> 
> [Winner - Love Me Love Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppOWR7ZLl7Q)  
> [K.will - I need you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpOau9ZxQNY)  
> [EXO - Winter Heat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPT100OYevs)  
> [Davichi - 괜찮아 사랑이야](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXHvDDLiANA)  
> [EXO - Heaven](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_vSJn4b2XQ)


End file.
